Supreme Court Shockingly Stands up to Trump on Press Freedom
The Supreme Court has rejected a bid by one of Donald Trump’s allies to attack a key press protection.
The Supreme Court will not take on a case aimed at rescinding press protections via libel lawsuits.
The nation’s highest judiciary rejected an effort Monday by Republican megadonor Steve Wynn, declining to hear his argument for overturning New York Times v. Sullivan, a landmark 1964 decision that raised the standards required for a plaintiff to win a defamation lawsuit against a media organization.
In that case, the bench unanimously found that it wasn’t enough for reported information to be found false for a plaintiff to win a suit. Instead, Justice William Brennan Jr. argued that in order to win a defamation case, public figures must prove that journalists published details with “actual malice”—as in, a gross recklessness or disregard for the truth.
In a petition filed in February, Wynn claimed that the 61-year-old precedent was “unfit for the modern era.”
“Instead, everyone in the world has the ability to publish any statement with a few keystrokes. And in this age of clickbait journalism, even those members of the legacy media have resorted to libelous headlines and false reports to generate views. This Court need not further this golden era of lies,” the attorney for the former Republican National Committee finance chair wrote.
The high court has thrown out previous attempts to upend the libel standard. In 2022, the Supreme Court refused to hear a similar challenge to the “actual malice” definition when Coral Ridge Ministries Media sued the Southern Poverty Law Center for listing them as an “anti-LGBTQ hate group.” But not everyone on the court was in agreement—in a controversial dissenting opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas left the door open for possible future attempts to undo the decision, writing that the original ruling was “allowing media organizations and interest groups ‘to cast false aspersions on public figures with near impunity.’”
Ultimately, the “actual malice” standard for public figures and officials is intended to deter lawsuits from people who don’t need to rely on the legal system in order to correct or address negative coverage. Instead, people in power can call for news conferences or (in the case of elected officials) draft new laws that counteract the narrative of their unwanted media coverage. Times v. Sullivan also protects press organizations from people with enormous wealth who could potentially leverage their financial resources in order to silence criticism of their behavior.
Defamation standards for private figures are different: Average, everyday people suing media organizations for incorrect coverage do not have to prove “actual malice,” and instead only need to show a court that the information was incorrect and damaged their reputation.
Wynn’s case against press protections comes with its own baggage. In 2018, the casino mogul sued the Associated Press for defamation after the newswire reported that two women had accused him of sexual assault in the 1970s.
Wynn resigned as chairman and CEO of Wynn Resorts that year, just two weeks after The Wall Street Journal reported that the billionaire had paid out a $7.5 million settlement to a hired manicurist he allegedly raped.
“After she gave Mr. Wynn a manicure, she said, he pressured her to take her clothes off and told her to lie on the massage table he kept in his office suite, according to people she gave the account to,” the Journal reported at the time. “The manicurist said she told Mr. Wynn she didn’t want to have sex and was married, but he persisted in his demands that she do so, and ultimately she did disrobe and they had sex, the people remember her saying.”
The Nevada state Supreme Court ruled against Wynn in November, with Justice Ron Parraguirre writing that “one of the most recognized figures in Nevada” needed to show “clear and convincing evidence to reasonably infer that the publication was made with actual malice.”
This story has been updated.
